PREKÄRA PIONJÄRER - En studie om nyetablerade entreprenörers roll i omvandlingen av Gamlestaden

Abstract

In urban research into gentrification there has been a long schism between two perspectives: researchers who choose to look at the economic system that drives the fall and rise of prices in the city, and researchers who look at the consumption patterns of the middle class. In this master’s thesis, I have combined these two perspectives and looked at how both economic and cultural capital are used to create gentrification in Gamlestaden. The study shows that there is a close collaboration between new “pioneering” entrepreneurs and property owners engaged in the public-private partnership BID Gamlestaden. This is a process that fills the entrepreneurs with excitement, pride and self-fulfilment as they feel that they are part of the evolution of a new, alternative neighbourhood. However, this is not an equal collaboration. Even though the “pioneering” entrepreneurs in many ways have a privileged position compared to old establishments in the area, they are also precarious as they depend on high self-exploitation, low rents and the accumulation of symbolic capital and heightened attractivity that is expected to follow with the gentrification. Additionally, the thesis also discovers an underlying racist pattern in which entrepreneurs that are welcome to the area, and which establishments that are perceived as “matter out of place”.